To be adept at micro art, one needs crafty fingers, an extremely keen eye for detail and a great deal of patience. And if there’s one person who can flaunt all of the above traits, it is 23-year-old Dheeraj Kolla.
Dheeraj is a self-taught micro artist who specialises in sculpting portraits, letters, logos and much more on the nibs of pencils. He has even turned boring old pieces of chalk into famous monuments and dabbles in the art of etching on egg shells. “I’m someone who likes to be the centre of attention in a group, to stand out. But in college, that was not happening. So I wanted to carve a niche for myself and I started searching for a unique art form to take up as I was always interested in art anyway. One day, I came across micro art. I reached out to artists from China and Russia to ask for advice on what tools and techniques to use, but nobody responded because I had nothing to show. That’s when I started watching YouTube videos to learn,” shares Dheeraj, whose works are now being appreciated by the same artists who turned a deaf ear to him earlier.
They say that where there’s a will, there’s a way, and Dheeraj internalised the saying only too well. The young, enterprising boy didn’t give up on his passion, and since 2016, has come a very long way. The quality of his artworks has only been going uphill, as for the number of followers he has on his Instagram page — it’s almost 12,000! This year on Diwali, he met the Governor E.S.L Narasimhan to present him with a sculpture of a diya, while earlier, he gifted a portrait of Dr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam to the CEO of Abdul Kalam University. “I have gifted my works to Senthil, the cinematographer of Baahubali, Sriram, the singer, Dil Raju and Pullela Gopichand.”
Sharing some special moments of his life, he says, “When I displayed my work at the Instagram meet, a lot of people came and asked about my work. I had finally got what I wanted. I was the centre of attention that day!”
About how long each piece takes, he says, “It depends on my state of mind. Once I etched 20 letters on a nib in 45 minutes and another day I took eight hours to do just two letters.”
